How
a Casino Will Impact Our Community
Though it is being
presented as a help to our neighborhood, a casino will be a Trojan horse,
profiting mainly the wealthy corporate executives and leaving the city and our
neighbors with all the problems:
Fewer Jobs:
Every new slot machine
kills 1-2 jobs per year because each machine removes more than $100,000
annually from the consumer economy. The East Boston casino proposal calls for
4,000-5,000 slot machines. [1]
Local Businesses Suffer:
66
percent of independent restaurants closed in Atlantic City after the casinos
opened there [2], and a third of the city's retail businesses have since closed
[3]. Casino owner Donald Trump famously said: "People will spend a
tremendous amount of money in casinos, money that they would normally spend on
buying a refrigerator or a new car. Local businesses will suffer because they
lose customer dollars to the casinos."[4]
Crime Increases:
After a
5-7-year honeymoon period in which crime stays the same or decreases slightly,
rates of assaults, larcenies, burglaries, robberies, murders, and auto theft
increase go up from 22-114 percent. [5] |
| Addiction and Bankruptcies Increase:
Gambling addiction rates double in communities surrounding casinos, increasing
from around 1-2 percent to 3-5 percent. [6] If the populations of Boston,
Revere, Chelsea, and Winthrop see just a 1 percent increase in gambling
addiction, the casino would create 7,200 new problem gamblers – double the
number of jobs the complex promises to create. Personal bankruptcies increase
by more than 18 percent in surrounding communities. [7]
Traffic Increases:
10,000-15,000 new vehicles will be on our roads every day, further congesting
an already unequipped Route 1A. The $40 million in "improvements" do
not come close to meeting the infrastructure improvements needed to support a
casino -- which would cost around $500 million, according to a study conducted
by Seagull Consulting, for Sen. Anthony Petruccelli. [8]
Other Effects:
Home values
decrease, car insurance rates increase, predatory lending increases, and air
pollution is worsened. |
Why would we willingly
invite this unknown entity, this Trojan horse, into our community — one which
has seen unprecedented positive growth over the last 20 years?
--------------------
Sources:
1.
J. Kindt, Senior Ed. (Ed.). 2009. Gambling
with Crime, Destabilized Economies, and Financial Systems, 1-1,286.
Buffalo, New York: William S. Hein and Company, Inc.
2.
Evelyn Nieves, “Our Towns: Taste of Hope at Restaurants Casinos Hurt,” New York Times, March 23, 1997, section
1, p. 39.
3.
Robert Goodman, The Luck Business: The
Devastating Consequences and Broken Promises of America’s Gambling Explosion (New
York: Free Press, 1995), p. 23.
4.
Interview with Donald Trump. "The Jackpot State", The Miami Herald, March 27, 1994
5.
Grinols and
Mustard download, p.14 Figure 6: Percentage increases calculated by
dividing year one figures by year seven figures as reported by Grinols and
Mustard
6.
Welte, J. W., Wieczorek, W. F., Barnes, G. M., Tidwell, M.-C. O., &
Hoffman, J. H. (2004). The relationship of ecological and geographic factors to
gambling behavior and pathology. Journal of Gambling Studies, 20,
405-423.
7.
The Personal Bankruptcy Crisis, 1997: Demographics, Causes, Implications &
Solutions," SMR Research Corporation, 1997, p. 117.
8.
Lynds, John. “Petruccelli:
Put casino legislation in the hands of voters.” East Boston Times Free-Press. March 19, 2010.
